I first started baking challah about 6 years ago, when I didn’t know where to find it in Richmond. (It was actually some of the first home-baked bread I ever attempted!) Since then I’ve been slowly perfecting my technique.

I’ve had several requests for my base recipe, so here goes:

Easy Challah

Ingredients
4 cups bread flour (you can substitute up to 1 cup whole wheat)
1 Tbsp table salt 
1 cup water, slightly warm (can also use milk, apple cider, etc.)
1 1/2 Tbsp yeast
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup oil
2 eggs 
(+1 for egg wash, or 1/4 cup milk, optional)
(Poppy or sesame seeds for topping, optional)

Instructions
*Note: I use a stand mixer for this recipe. It could also be done by hand, or even in a bread machine, if you’re into that sort of thing.

1. Thoroughly combine flour(s) and salt in bowl of stand mixer, using hand whisk.
2. Whisk together water and sugar, add yeast and mix well. Wait a minute or two until mixture begins to foam.
3. Add 2 eggs to yeast mixture and whisk until uniform. Add oil and continue whisking.
4. With stand mixer running on low speed with the dough hook attachment, slowly add wet ingredients to dry ingredients.
5. Once all the flour is moistened turn the mixer up to medium speed (I use #4 on my KitchenAid)
6. If dough is too dry, add a splash of water. If too wet, a little flour. I often find the dough likes to stick to the sides of the bowl. If so, stop the mixer every 2-3 minutes and scrape it down with a rubber spatula.
7. Knead for 6-10 minutes. Once you’re satisfied with the consistency of the dough, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and knead a few turns by hand, then shape into a ball.
8. Place the dough ball in a large, lightly-oiled bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Allow it to rise at room temperature for 45-60 minutes, until dough doubles in size. (You can also use an oven that has been warmed to 200 and turned off, which should take 30-45 minutes).

Now comes the fun part, shaping! This recipe makes enough for 2-3 smaller loaves or one large loaf. I like to make one large six-stranded loaf, but two (or even three) smaller, 3-stranded loaves is certainly a fine alternative. I highly prefer using parchment paper to make moving the finished loaf around much easier.

Lots of folks have asked me about my easy method for making a six-stranded loaf. Here’s how I do it:

1. Separate the dough into six even portions and form into long “snakes” by rolling back and forth on the counter or between your hands. They should be approximately 1 to 1 1/2 inches in diameter and 14 – 16 inches long (depending on whether you want a longer loaf or a taller one!)
2. Join all six strands at one end by pinching them together, then lay them all out side-by-side.
3. Using the following pattern, braid until you run out of dough:
   • 2nd from the left to the far right
   • Outside left 2 to the right
   • 2nd from the right to the far left
   • Outside right 2 to the left

   (I find this works best if I keep the strands separated into two groups of 3 while I’m braiding.))

4. Once you reach the end of  the shortest dough strand, pinch the remaining strands together and tuck under the end of the loaf. Tuck the pinched end you started from underneath as well.

Regardless of how you choose to divide and shape your loaves, cover and allow another 30-45 minutes for rising, then follow these steps for baking:

1. Heat your oven to 350. I prefer to use a baking stone, on the lower-middle rack, but you can also use regular baking sheets.
2. For a nice, glossy golden finish you should use an egg wash. For a less shiny but still beautiful finish, a milk wash is another alternative. For the egg wash, beat the remaining egg until smooth. Brush the wash gently over the unbaked, risen bread. Wait 5 minutes, then brush again.
3. If using poppy or sesame seeds, sprinkle after the second wash.
4. Bake in 350 oven till golden brown, 25-40 minutes, depending on the size and number of loaves.
5. Cool on wire rack to room temperature, slice and enjoy!

Let me know if you use this recipe and if you have any success!

Mojeji Ranch – We spent the first two nights of our vacation with our friends Jon and Janelle Flory-Shrock at their farm, where they live with Jon’s parents. We had a blast living the farm life, helping with chores like feeding the goats, moving cow fences, checking on laying hens, and tending the garden.

Alley Spring and Mill – A quick but picturesque stop on the way from the Ranch to our campground (pictures at this link are broken, but you can see them in our photo album.)

Riversedge Campground – Where we primitive-camped for the majority of our time in Missouri. We also enjoyed one of their canoe float trips down the river on Wednesday.

Johnson Shut-Ins State Park – Part of our whirlwind tour of State Parks on Thursday, we went back for several hours on Friday to swim, play, and picnic. We also visited their river center museum.

Elephant Rocks State Park – A fun place where we enjoyed hiking the “braille trail”, visiting the engine house ruins, and scrambling on the rocks.

Fort Davidson State Historic Site – Another stop along the way Thursday, we learned about the role this area played in the Civil War.

Taum Sauk Mountain State Park – Thursday afternoon we visited Missouri’s highest point on Taum Sauk Mountain, then went on a 3 mile hike to see Mina Sauk falls which weren’t flowing much that day but made for another great place to take pictures.

Sappington Farmers’ Market – On Saturday we drove to St. Louis, where the first stop was this rancher- and farmer-owned market where the local beef co-op Mojeji is a part of was having a cook-out. We enjoyed the food and the large indoor market, replete with both traditional groceries and lots of amazing local products.

Ted Drewes Frozen Custard – Upon the recommendation of a friend we stopped at Ted Drewes, on historic Route 66 and had some “concretes” (which are roughly akin to DQ Blizzards, though much tastier!)

City Museum – We happened to learn about this from a local we met camping. The museum consists of many “found items” from within the city limits of St. Louis that have been creatively and artistically transformed into what amounts to an enormous playground for children and adults alike.

Eastlake Inn Bed and Breakfast – We spent Saturday night at a lovely bed and breakfast just outside St. Louis, in Kirkwood. The Magnolia room was splendid, and we loved playing with the 4 Golden Retrievers who lived there too!

Harvest Restaurant – The local-foods scene in St. Louis is thriving, including one of the top-rated restaurants in town, Harvest, where we dined Saturday night.

Gateway Arch and Museum of Westward Expansion – All part of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial in St. Louis, on Sunday morning we made the trip to the top of the iconic arch and explored the interesting (but at times heartbreaking) museum.

Local Harvest Cafe and Grocery – The last stop on our trip was at another local-foods eatery and purveyor. The cafe and grocery are in two different buildings but both were super groovy and made me wish we had a stronger local-foods culture in Richmond!

Well, those are the high points of our trip! We also visited REI, Whole Foods Market, and several other less noteworthy places along the way. Overall it was a great trip, spending a week of vacation in the beautiful Ozark Mountains of Missouri.

Being Vulnerable
Maybe this is one of the root causes of the misconception that I’m such an obnoxiously successful person. Whether I intend to or not, I have a tendency to minimize my struggles and shortcomings and emphasize what I do well. I don’t feel like this is necessarily an unusual way of moving in the world, but from talking with friends whom I trust (more on that later) I’ve learned I can be difficult to connect with because I often don’t allow others to witness my failures, whether they be large or small. Here’s hoping that this blog post might be a small step toward being more open and vulnerable.

Fostering deep, meaningful friendships
Though I tend to be very personable, amiable, and generally fun to be around, I’ve never been very good at making friends. I’m great at making acquaintances and connections, but nurturing meaningful, mutual friendships is not my forte. While in my younger years I found I could get by just fine with only having a couple “close” friends, the older I get (and the farther into a profession that can sometimes be very isolating) the more I realize the unmet longing I have for such intimate friendships. It’s quite difficult to learn how to build such friendships when you’re almost 30 years into your life.

Spending money on myself
So this one may seem a little more light-hearted than the previous two, but I still count it as a real difficulty in my life. Not that I feel like I should be lavishing myself with lots of expensive things. There are just very few things I feel good about spending money on, particularly for myself. Let me give an example. For weeks now my laptop has been on the fritz – locking up two or three times a day, often resulting in lost work and much frustration. Yet the thought of spending money on buying a replacement laptop is really difficult for me. Another example is the fact that I hesitate going to the doctor to attend to minor, non-critical health concerns because I don’t want to spend the money or time on myself (even though I have insurance.) I’m much more comfortable spending money on the wants and needs of others, like my wife or even by spending more on certain purchases that are more socially and environmentally just. I’m naturally frugal and thrifty (miserly?) but with self-spending I take these tendencies to the extreme.

Taking care of myself (and not feeling guilty about it!)
It’s quite likely this shortcoming is connected with the one I’ve just named. Putting the needs of others first is truly a Christ-like thing, but not being able to recognize and tend to one’s own needs is definitely problematic. Too often I find myself slipping into the latter of these. Many times it is because I haven’t taken the time to even think about what my needs or wants are, and so I bounce through life without much concern for myself. Then, when I do take time (or energy, or money, etc.) for myself I inevitably feel guilty for it. Not because of anything anyone else says or does, but simply because of some psychological short-circuit I must have. I find that I’m better at meeting my needs subconsciously and unintentionally (procrastination to take time away from work, vegging in front of the TV for down-time, etc.) than I am at naming and caring for those needs in a mindful, intentional way.

Remembering
As many of my friends (or my wife!) can probably tell you, I have an infamously poor memory. If I don’t stick to regular habits of putting things back where they belong I can never seem to find them. If I don’t write to-do lists I forget to do important things. If I don’t have some strong emotional or intellectual connection to some past event in my life I usually have a hard time recalling it. I joke about my wife being the “official rememberer” in our family, but it’s so true its scary (thankfully it is one of her many gifts!) While often this results in minor annoyance while I’m trying to remember where I’ve left my wallet, sunglasses, or keys, at other times it’s really depressing, like when I can’t remember much of my childhood or even things that happened in the earlier years of our relationship (or what I wore to work last week!)

Avoiding distraction
Of all these personal difficulties, avoiding distraction is one that I know I’ve struggled with the longest, all the way back to my grade school years. I’m a horrendous procrastinator and will follow any rabbit-hole I come across to avoid doing what needs to be done. I’ve tried every self-help solution in the book and none seem to do much good. Externally-imposed hard and potentially embarrassing deadlines (such as worship taking place every Sunday morning whether I’m ready or not) seem to be the only thing that work for me. Time-management in general is the struggle here, and whether the distraction is working on a non-essential work-related sidetrack or surfing Facebook and eBay, the results are the same – I’m really bad at keeping on task and getting things done when I want them to be done (not just when they need to be.)

Well … I hope this has helped clear the air a little bit about just how “real” and “flawed” I really am. I hope it comes across as being authentic and not as obnoxious or self-loathing. I’m not perfect and really don’t want you to think that I am. Nobody’s perfect, and that’s OK! (Though I’m better at admitting that about others than I am about myself – part of reason we’re having this conversation, I suppose.) I’m not looking for you to pity me or to try and fix me, I’m just wanting to share a little bit of the behind-the-scenes, big picture of who I really am and the things I struggle with on this journey we call life. Of course, you’re welcome to join me on my journey – just don’t expect that I’ll always be perfectly successful every step along the way.

How do we as young adults and church leaders engage with social media sites? While this might seem like an innocent enough question at first, with seemingly easy answers (I use site x not site y, etc.) in actuality it’s much more complex.

I was recently at a local blogging workshop where they were discussing institutional involvement in social media (aka social networking). The presenter was speaking out of his experience working with colleges and universities that are trying to be more active in connecting with prospectives, students, and alumni using current and emerging social media sites. One example that he gave was how the chancellor of our regional campus of Indiana University (IU East) is using Twitter to make a personal connection with people, in addition to several other IU East-related Twitter feeds.

Immediately I started thinking of how different this is from how I use social media on a regular basis. Whereas chancellor Paydar maintains his single social media identity through his role with IU East, that model isn’t remotely appealing to me (and I imagine the same is probably true for others of you in my generation.) For me, such sites are enjoyable and meaningful because of the opportunity they provide for near-instant, authentic, personal connection between me and others who know me. In these spaces (as in the rest of my life) I am not first and foremost Pastor Matt, but rather Matt, who is a pastor. A subtle but important difference.

Obviously, the struggle is that while I maintain a personal presence on several social media sites (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn,Flickr, etc.) there are times that I do connect with people primarily through my role as a pastor and representative of the “institutional church.” The reason it’s such a struggle is because of the ever-present tensions between authenticity and appropriateness, intimacy and identity. On social media sites these desires get all mashed together in a way that is more difficult to manage than interacting with people in other ways.

I am like many folks who fall into the more post-modern mindset in that I have a deep desire for authentic, intimate connections with others. However, if I am to be truly authentic in such interactions then what happens when my personal thoughts, feelings, and actions are at odds with those of the institution I’m seen to represent? For someone whose primary online identity is institutional (like chancellor Paydar), this decision is easy – the institutional image always wins. But as someone who wants these sites to also be a space where I can truly be myself, the answer isn’t so straightforward.

The two options I’ve come up with both leave me feeling less than satisfied:

1. Maintain separate identities or sites for my different roles, i.e. a persona to use as an institutional representative and another solely for personal use. While this would seem to go with the “clear boundaries” approach to ministry, my lifestyle and self-perception are much more integrated than this would accommodate. I am not two persons, but one complex, multi-faceted person, which is how I would like others to see me and how I hope to represent myself.
2. Maintain my own personal persona and an identity for the institution itself. Instead of trying to be both “Matt” and “Pastor Matt” in two separate accounts, the other option is to give the church itself its own distinct social-media identity. I like this possibility because it takes some of the online institutional representation pressure off me, but at the expense of a somewhat less personal (less authentic?) persona for the church. While the church is an institution, it is also a community made up of real people, and our online presence should somehow reflect that.

Thus far my approach has been along the lines of option 2, with making a Facebook “fan page” for our church. I’m still debating what to do about other sites like Twitter and Flickr.

It’s safe to say that social media sites like this aren’t going anywhere, and that more and more of us will be using them with at least some frequency in the future. I’d love to hear your thoughts and reflections on how you’re navigating this digital dilemma, as well as what suggestions you might have for the rest of us as together we make our way through this brave new (online) world.

Chocolate Granola Bars

Ingredients
2 cups rolled oats (6.65oz / 190g)
1/2 cup packed brown sugar (6.4oz / 180g)
1/2 cup wheat germ (2.25oz / 65g)
1 cup whole wheat flour (5.1oz / 145g)
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup honey
1 egg, beaten
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3/4 cup mini chocolate chips (4oz / 120g)
3/4 cup chopped nuts (3oz / 82g) – I prefer toasted pecans
*1/2 cup dried fruit (varies) – optional, reduce chips and nuts to 1/2 cup each if using

Instructions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Line a 9×13 inch pan two pieces of aluminum foil, forming a sling. Grease or coat the pan in nonstick spray. Prepping the pan this way should allow you to remove the bars from the pan easily.

In a small bowl mix the honey, egg, oil, and vanilla. In a large bowl mix oats, brown sugar, wheat germ, cocoa, cinnamon, flour, chocolate chips, nuts, (fruit) and salt. Make an indention in the center of the dry mixture, and pour in the wet mixture and mix well. (Don’t be afraid to use your hands to get everything coated.) Press the mixture into the pan.  Bake for 20 to 30 minutes until the edges are well-set. Cool for about 5 minutes and cut the bars while they are still warm.

*Note: I didn’t have any eggs when I first made this recipe and decided to forge ahead anyway. I gave them a little longer to cook, probably closer to 35 or 40 minutes, but otherwise didn’t change the recipe any. They turned out pretty (as you can see in these pics) and were probably just a little more crumbly than if I had used egg. In other words, these could easily be vegan (depending on whether you consider honey to be non-vegan.)

As you can tell, this is a great recipe for experimenting with, so go ahead and tweak it to your liking. If you do make them, be sure to let me know how they turn out!

Android Central – Part of The Smartphone Experts network, the same folks who run CrackBerry.com, which was one of my favorite Blackberry blogs, and The iPhone Blog. Like several of these blogs, Android Central also runs a store with accessories.

AndroidSPIN – AndroidSPIN appeals to the slightly more technical user, with more coverage of the latest unofficial Android ROMs.

Android and Me - This blog easily wins the Android blog beauty contest, both for its main site and its mobile site. In addition to news, they seem to have a good proportion of original content, such as app reviews and a great tutorial on making your WordPress blog more iPhone and Android friendly (something I hope to do soon!)

Droid Life – This is definitely the oddball of my list. It’s much less polished than the rest, and focuses exclusively on the Motorola Droid. Despite it being a little less robust than the larger sites, this one has lots of excellent Droid-specific content like the Android 2.1 apps (with multi-touch) that have been ported to the Droid. It can get a bit technical at times, with information on “rooting” and so on, but still a useful site to have in my RSS reader.

I also keep an eye on Android-related posts at Lifehacker (one of my favorite blogs in general) and occasionally browse the Android-tagged posts on Engadget.

Any other Android users out there have favorite blogs (or other Android sites) you frequent? Any you’ve found completely useless? I’d love to hear about them in the comments.

Last Friday my wife and I received our new Droids, and after using it pretty intensely over the weekend, these are some of my overall impressions. I won’t even attempt at making this post exhaustive – instead I’ll try and post some follow-ups on things like what apps I’ve found useful (or not) and so on.

I must say that I wasn’t initially sold on getting a Droid – the Google Nexus One is supposed to be coming to Verizon sometime this Spring, and knowing that it has more memory, faster processor, a newer version of Android, etc. I was very tempted to just wait. However, just as decision-time was looming reports started to emerge that the Droid would soon be upgraded to the same, newer version of Android (2.1). Also, the Nexus One has definitely had its share of issues for early-adopters, so ultimately I decided to go with the slightly older but seemingly more reliable Droid.

Initial Setup

Setup was relatively painless for me, already having had a Google account. I had sync’d all of my contacts from my old Blackberry to my Google account using Google Sync, and I had already “cleaned up” my address books in anticipation of importing them to the new phone. You may notice I referred to address books. That’s because I’m taking advantage of one of the key features of Android 2.0 or newer, the ability to connect with multiple Google accounts.

I use Gmail for both my personal and work email, calendar, etc. but with separate accounts. Initially, I was worried about how this would go – would I end up with many duplicate contacts because some people appear in both contacts lists? Would I be able to specify where new contacts are saved when I create them on the phone? How would calendars work?

All my fears were laid to rest as I set up the phone, first with my personal account, then adding my work one. Android does a great job of combining duplicate contacts while still allowing you to un-join them if it makes a mistake or if you want them to remain distinct. When you start to add a new contact, it immediately asks which account to create it under.

One slight disappointment is that the calendar only syncs with the primary account on the phone, my personal account in my case. However, since I had already set up calendar sharing between my work and personal accounts I am still able to view, edit, and add to my work calendars. Disaster averted.

Kudos

I’m incredibly impressed with the inherent flexibility of the Android OS. The commercials for the MyTouch 3G (which also uses Android) that tout the system’s myriad personalization options are really spot-on. Within a couple days, I already have a setup that is very usable and customized to my taste. I’ll write more about this when I blog about apps.

The touch screen is great. This is the first touch device I’ve owned and I’ve always been a bit leery, especially of onscreen keyboards. However, the screen is so responsive and the virtual keyboard so good that I find myself rarely using the physical keyboard.

Google Maps and Google Voice integration are awesome. The navigation app is simply game-changing (no wonder Garmin’s stock dropped significantly once Google introduced it!)

Some other highlights:

• Threaded SMS messaging
• Push support for Gmail
• Great call quality
• Very good voice recognition

Gripes

Of course, nothing is perfect, not even shiny new tech-toys. There is always room for improvement, and these are just a few of the things I’ve run into already that leave me wanting more:

Groups support – Gmail itself does a great job of supporting contact groups, allowing you to send messages to groups, arrange contacts, etc. Android’s support of groups is incredibly rudimentary. All you seem to be able to do is filter your contacts by choosing which groups sync from your Gmail accounts and which groups are hidden. Even then, it is a multi-step process that’s more work that it’s worth. I can’t set ringtones based on group membership, I can’t send emails or SMS texts to groups, and I can’t even modify what groups that contacts are members of. This is the biggest FAIL I’ve come across thus far …

Notifications – I’m surprised to say this, but my old Blackberry Curve did a much better job of managing notifications than the Droid. On the Blackberry there was a single menu section for specifying all the many notifications – phone calls, text messages, email accounts, etc. You could set up multiple notification profiles and easily enable them from the home screen. In comparison, the notifications subsystem in Android is much more rudimentary. Within each app, I can control its notifications, and there are some system-wide settings for ringtones and such but no support for multiple profiles. Once notifications are set, all you can do is adjust notification volume, turn off audible alerts (leaving only apps that would normally vibrate), and turn off both audible and vibrating alerts. I’m really disappointed that I can’t set up a more specialized vibration profile, but it seems I may have to find “an app for that” …

Physical Keyboard – One of the bragging rights of this phone is that it has a physical keyboard. However, it sucks. Seriously. I loved the keyboard on my Blackberry. Despite its tiny keys, I could quickly and accurately type what I needed. At first I thought it might just be a learning curve issue, but then I tried the onscreen keyboards (both in portrait and landscape mode) and found them much more usable and accurate. Including a physical keyboard on this device was a significant design decision by Motorola – you would think they would have made it worthwhile! It leaves me wishing they had left it out and saved a couple millimeters in thickness and reduced the mechanical complexity.

Bluetooth Voice Dialing – The last gripe I’ve got (for now) is that Android doesn’t support bluetooth voice dialing. Period. It’s just not there. I’ve done some research and this is simply a feature that isn’t implemented in Android (yet?). This is a huge disappointment for me, because I (did) usemy bluetooth headset for voice dialing all the time. The Droid does have a “Voice Dialing” app, which works very well. You just can’t use it with bluetooth. This seems like such an obvious oversight to me. Even my wife’s old LG enV2 had this feature. My old Motorola e815 that I had 3 years ago had it too. Bluetooth voice dialing pre-dates Android’s existence! Why is it not supported?!?!?! Argh.

Final Thoughts

Don’t take all my gripes to mean I don’t like the Droid – I still love it. It’s just that when a device has so much potential it’s hard not to notice the areas it falls flat on its face. I’m still finding it incredibly useful and overall a much more powerful device than my Blackberry. I still have some things I need to tweak (getting favorite mobile sites bookmarked, etc.) and more apps to play with, but I’m sure that will come with time.

Stay tuned for upcoming posts where I’ll talk more in depth about apps, Google Voice integration, and more!

(Original post available here)

One of the challenges I faced in configuring my new backup system on my Ubuntu Linux-based server was setting up my two external drives to mount at the same place in the filesystem.

Why? Because the program I use to manage my backups, BackupPC, expects the storage “pool” to always be in the same place. My options were to write a script to change the BackupPC configuration each time a different drive was plugged in, or make the pool mount in the same location regardless of which drive I’m using. Because I was working with LUKS-encrypted volumes I faced additional complexities which made it  difficult to use other methods (like volume labeling) because of how Gnome handles and mounts such encrypted volumes.

While it took a while to make it work, once I figured it out it did exactly what I needed. Now, I’m sharing my results with you to save you the trouble of doing all the research yourself!

I found the easiest solution both for this problem and my next one (making eSATA drives auto mount) was to use HAL configuration files. HAL stands for “Hardware Abstraction Layer” and is one of the ways Linux interfaces with various hardware elements, including hard drives. Using XML it is easy to create custom policies to define how HAL handles particular devices.

(*Note: I have read that Ubuntu will soon be moving away from using HAL, possibly as soon as 9.10, Karmic Koala. I’ve tested this on Ubuntu 8.04, 8.10, and 9.04, but it should work with any distro that (still) uses HAL.)

(** Note 2: Having recently begun the process of rebuilding my server on Ubuntu 9.10/Karmic, I can verify that this method DOES NOT WORK. I am currently in the process of figuring out a solution, likely using udev and scripting, and will post my results as a post here …)

These configuration files are located in /etc/hal/fdi/policy. My installation included one existing file – preferences.fdi – which defines whether non-removable drives are auto-mounted. (We’ll get to eSATA auto mounting soon enough …)

Some quick notes on how .fdi files work: first devices are matched with pre-determined keys, defined through XML. Then, actions are taken by changing (or “merging”) other keys. A very basic .fdi file might consist of the following:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?> <!-- -*- SGML -*- -->
<deviceinfo version="0.2">

 <device>
   <match key="some.key" string="some_string">
     <merge key="another.key" type="bool">true</merge>
   </match>
 </device>

So what’s the easiest way to find these keys to match and merge? In my experience, Gnome Device Manager (aka gnome-device-manager).

To see if you have Device Manager installed, check under “Applications -> System Tools” or try to launch gnome-device-manager from the terminal. If it doesn’t work, install it using Synaptic or run:

sudo apt-get install gnome-device-manager

With your drive plugged in and turned on, open up the device manager and begin to look for your drive. You may have to expand some of the trees for “SCSI Host Adapters” and “SCSI Devices”, or possibly USB-related trees,  before you see the drive entries, usually titled “Mass Storage Drive” or something about removable storage.  There may be several of these entries. You will need to look at attributes like the model numbers and capacities to determine which drive it is you’re wanting.

Once you’ve identified the drive you want the information for, type ctrl+p or click on “View -> Device Properties” which should make an additional “Properties” tab appear beside the previous “Summary” tab. Now you will be able to see the various keys, types, and values you can use when creating .fdi files. For our purposes here we will need to look at the properties not for the drive itself, but for the volume we want to create a mount point for.

Note: this is with drive attached via eSATA

Our first order of business is to find a key that will provide a definitive match for each drive / volume. In my situation I was using two identical external enclosures with two identical drives. I could have simply created one rule that would specify the mount point based on any drive that matched some shared property, such as the model number (storage.model) but I wanted to make sure that these two volumes and only these volumes would share this mount point. In addition, I wanted to be able to tell at a glance which one was mounted, so I needed HAL to distinguish between them somehow.

Every volume has a distinctive UUID – kind of like a fingerprint that identifies it to the rest of the system. In the device manager, under the properties tab for the volume you’re working on, look for the volume.UUID key. Once you’ve found it you can begin to write your HAL policy file.

Create a new, blank text file in /etc/hal/fdi/policy. (You will probably need to do all this as root / sudo) Name it something like 30-sharedmounts.fdi. (The “30″ in the file name makes sure this policy is evaluated prior to the general preferences file.) Once you have created your file, open it in your favorite text editor and start with the following:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?> <!-- -*- SGML -*- -->
<deviceinfo version="0.2">

Now we need to specify the device and they keys we want to match and merge:

<device>
 <match key="block.is_volume" bool="true">
 <match key="volume.uuid" string="7feeefbf-416b-4383-9bb3-7fd51cb3e702">
   <merge key="volume.policy.desired_mount_point" type="string">ext_backup</merge>
   <merge key="volume.label" type="string">Ext Backup 1</merge>
 </match>
 </match>
</device>

Here’s a quick explanation of what you see above, and what each does:

• <match key=”block.is_volume” bool=”true”> – A little bit of insurance, to make sure we’re working with a volume and not a drive.
• <match key=”volume.uuid” string=”7feeefbf-416b-4383-9bb3-7fd51cb3e702″> – As described above, identifies the particular volume you want to specify the mount point for.
• <merge key=”volume.policy.desired_mount_point” type=”string”>ext_backup – This is the new mount point, which will appear beneath /media/ , so this example would mount as /media/ext_backup .
• <merge key=”volume.label” type=”string”>Ext Backup 1 – A little extra nicety. This is how we can identify between different volumes, even when they’re mounted at the same point in the filesystem.

Now that you’ve got the mount point specified for your first volume, you’ll want to do the same for your second (and any other subsequent) volumes. For each volume, just find the UUID and create a new <device> section in the .fdi file. Be sure to specify the same mount point and unique volume labels (if you so desire.) Once you’re done, save your file and restart HAL (or just reboot.)

sudo /etc/init.d/hal restart

Now, whenever you plug in your drives and Gnome auto-mounts your volumes, they will mount in the same place every time.

What’s that, you say? You’re using eSATA drives and they don’t auto-mount? My next blog post will take care of that for you, and it shouldn’t take more than about 5 minutes of your time. As an added bonus, this method will mount the volumes in the same place regardless of whether they’re connected by USB or eSATA.

After obtaining (and assembling) my new backup hardware my first order of business was to get the external hard drives formatted and set up with drive encryption. Since I’m swapping out one drive to store off-site I wanted to use drive encryption just in case it somehow ended up in someone else’s posession. In Ubuntu, the easiest way to encrypt a whole drive is using LUKS. I chose LUKS because it is easily readable by most Linux computers and can even be set up on a Windows PC, if absolutely necessary. This post will walk through the (remarkably simple) process of setting up encryption and formatting.

(Note: most of these instructions are condensed adaptations of articles I found here and here. )

FYI: I set up my drives using these instructions on Ubuntu 8.10 – Intrepid Ibex. I was later able to successfully mount and access the drives using Ubuntu 8.04 – Hardy Heron on my server and 9.04 – Jaunty Jackalope on my laptop.

When setting up my drives I was using USB 2.0, therefore these directions reflect that. The process may have been faster using eSATA, but at the time I did not yet have a controller card. The directions should be applicable to eSATA as well (unless otherwise noted), but your mileage may vary. These instructions can also be easily adapted for creating a handy, encrypted USB “thumb” drive.

Necessary Software

In order to proceed you must have the cryptsetup package installed:

sudo apt-get install cryptsetup

Finding the drive

After powering on the drive and hooking it up to the computer you need to identify the device:

dmesg | tail -20

[33884.688746] usb 4-1: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd ...
[33884.764079] usb 4-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
[33884.764868] scsi8 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
[33884.765316] usb-storage: device found at 9
[33884.765321] usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scan...
[33888.042416] usb-storage: device scan complete
[33888.043707] scsi 8:0:0:0: Direct-Access     HDS72505 0KLA360 ...
[33888.047550] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdb] 976773168 512-byte hardware sectors
[33888.048292] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
[33888.048300] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 00 38 00 00
[33888.048305] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
[33888.049648] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdb] 976773168 512-byte hardware sectors
[33888.050421] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
[33888.050428] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 00 38 00 00
[33888.050432] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
[33888.050438]  sdb: unknown partition table
[33888.066470] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI disk
[33888.066545] sd 8:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0

In the example above (from this article)  you can see that the drive has been recognized as /dev/sdb. Your drives may show up differently (mine appeared as /dev/sdd and /dev/sde.) I’ll continue to use /dev/sdb to refer to the drive we are working with, but you should replace it with whatever your result is.

Create the partition

Before you can actually set up encryption or format the drive, you must create a partition. This is simply a portion of the drive you intend to store data on. A single physical drive may contain multiple partitions (as is usually the case with a linux boot drive) or just one. At this point you could easily choose to set up both an encrypted and a non-encrypted partition on your drive. I didn’t have a need for this, so I’ll be continuing with a single partition.

While it can be accomplished via the command line, I chose to use the graphical GParted program, available under the “System -> Administration -> Partition Editor” menu.

Choose your device via the drop-down menu in the upper right-hand corner. Then, select the unallocated space and create a new partition that encompasses the entire available space. We do not want to format the partition, only create it, so select “unformatted” as the filesystem.

Click “Apply” and your new partition will be created. You should now have a partition named something like /dev/sdb1 (notice there’s now a number added.) Once you have created the partition successfully, close GParted.

Setting up encryption

The next section is copied verbatim from the aforementioned article:

The dm-crypt, sha256 and aes kernel modules will need to be loaded prior to encrypting the partition:

sudo modprobe dm-crypt
sudo modprobe sha256
sudo modprobe aes

If the following error messages appear when loading sha256 and aes:

sudo modprobe sha256
WARNING: Error inserting padlock_sha ... No such device

sudo modprobe aes
WARNING: Error inserting padlock_aes ... No such device

it is an indication that the system does not have a hardware cryptographic device (source: Ubuntu Bug #206129)

The workaround is to add the following lines (using your favorite editor) to the bottom of /etc/modprobe.d/aliases and re-run the modprobe commands for the sha256 and aes kernel modules:

alias sha256 sha256_generic
alias aes aes_generic

Note that this is only necessary when we are setting up the drive. Later we will access them through Gnome and won’t need these modules.

Encrypting the partition

Finally, we can run the command to encrypt the /dev/sdb1 partition.

While there are other ways of securing your encrypted drive (such as key file stored locally or on a USB flash drive) I have chosen to use a strong passphrase. Mine is 23 characters long, but any password 12 characters or longer not consisting of dictionary-findable words should suffice.

The tutorial I used recommended the following command:

sudo cryptsetup --verify-passphrase luksFormat /dev/sdb1 -c aes -s 256 -h sha256

The LUKS-formatting command above has the following options:

• –verify-passphrase – ensures the passphrase is entered twice to avoid an incorrect passphrase being used
• -c aes – specifies the use of AES encryption (c for cipher)
• -s 256 – specifies a 256-bit key size
• -h sha256 – use 256-bit SHA for password hashing

However, after reading this article I decided to go with 128-bit AES encryption instead, along with a strong passphrase, in hopes of reducing some computational overhead. Therefore, my command instead looked something like:

sudo cryptsetup --verify-passphrase luksFormat /dev/sdb1 -c aes -s 128 -h sha256

Creating the filesystem

After setting up the encrypted partition, you must open and map it in order to set up the filesystem and begin using it.

Start with:

sudo cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/sdb1 secureUSB

Which should prompt you for your passphrase and map the drive to /dev/mapper/secureUSB. Now you can format the encrypted partition with a filesystem using whatever method you prefer. I had good luck using GParted to format in ext3.

Like before, select the device you want to create the filesystem on – in this case /dev/mapper/secureUSB. You should again see a block of unallocated space, which you should select and create a new partition within. You may be presented with a big, scary message about setting a disklabel – tell it to create (since you have no data to lose on the drive at this point anyway!)

The create new partition screen will look just the same as before, only this time you will want to specify the filesystem type you want to use. Apply all the pending operations and wait for the formatting process – it can take quite a while, especially for large drives.

Mounting the encrypted drive

Having successfully set up encryption and created a filesystem, we’re almost ready to to mount the drive and begin using it! (Of course, this is still assuming you’re using USB. If you’re using eSATA then this won’t work as easily – that will come in a later post!)

Shut down the computer, disconnect the drive, and reboot. Once you’re back up and logged in, reconnect the drive and Gnome should prompt you for the passphrase and then mount automatically.

If you want the drive to unlock automatically on this computer, select “remember forever.”

After you’re unlocked and mounted, the final step is to take ownership of the drive’s root folder with a user other than your sudo/root user:

sudo chown youruser:youruser /media/disk

where youruser is the user you want to have ownership and /media/disk is where gnome auto-mounted the drive.

Finished!

Whew! I must say it has taken far longer to write this post than it did to actually perform these operations. The longest part of the entire process was creating the ext3 filesystem. If you’re using eSATA to set up the drive it will go much faster, however as I mentioned you will have a few more steps to take before you can easily hot-swap your drive. Stay tuned for the next post in this series for that how-to …